


Gender Fluid

by Acemindbreaker



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ableism, Canon Autistic Character, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Non-Binary Character, Gen, Nbphobia, Neopronouns, Transgender, Transphobia, comparing transphobia and ableism, they/them pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 22:45:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16050095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acemindbreaker/pseuds/Acemindbreaker
Summary: An agender witch, curious to find out what gender feels like, creates a potion that can temporarily alter someone's gender identity. They meant it initially just for fun and curiosity, but when it hits the general market, it brings up serious ethical challenges.This one's inspired by a writing prompt on Tumblr, based on a pun of the identity term genderfluid.





	Gender Fluid

The witch responsible for inventing the potion called Gender Fluid was simply a curious scientist, looking to crack the code and understand the nature of gender. As an agender person, they grew up knowing gender as something other people felt, and seemed to find important, but it was a fascinating mystery to them.

At least, until they took their first swig of Gender Fluid, and suddenly, for the first time, the witch felt distinctly female. She found it quite confusing. She did like how taking off her binder made her feel better about her body, instead of triggering dysphoria. But ultimately, she wasn’t her true self under the effects of the potion, and when the potion wore off, they were relieved to be back to themselves.

On further testing, using volunteers of all genders, the witch figured out how to mostly control which direction the Gender Fluid took its imbiber. They’d turned female because, immediately after they drank the potion, they’d happened to notice an itch on their left breast and that had reminded them of their AGAB. Any reminder of a gender they could conceivably be would trigger the transformation to that gender. For trans/nonbinary people who wanted to be their AGAB, nudity was usually the most effective trigger. For anyone not wanting to be their AGAB, pictures of people, pride flags or gender-stereotypical objects tended to work best. The witch’s cis female friend turned into a trans guy by looking at a cowboy hat after drinking, their trans female friend became a demiguy by looking at a funny meme about Maui from Moana, and their autistic demiguy friend—the one who’d shared the meme—became autigender by looking at a picture of his significant other. (Non-autistic people, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be able to become autigender. It seemed that Gender Fluid still had its limits.)

Among their friend group, it was a fun game. And when the witch chose to start selling it commercially, that’s what they’d intended. But before long, they discovered that it was getting an entirely different use.

A customer satisfaction survey revealed that the majority of users of Gender Fluid were trans and/or nonbinary people, suffering from dysphoria and without adequate access to transition resources, who used the potion to become their AGAB. Some used it only occasionally, for special occasions when they had to be around transphobic family members. Others were using it every day.

This data brought up mixed feelings for the witch. They wouldn’t give up being agender for anything—gaining a gender was an interesting experience, but being agender shaped who they were, and they loved being a part of the trans and nonbinary community. But they were lucky. They’d come out at fifteen to their loving family, who’d immediately accepted them, using their pronouns and buying them their first binder. They had a circle of friends with a range of identities, all of whom valued them for exactly who they were. They had only mild dysphoria, which they managed well. It was easy for them to make the choice to remain who they were, even though it meant giving up on the privileges of being cis.

But not everyone was so fortunate. A trans girl wrote how her family would send her to conversion camp if they knew, and many others in her community would probably kill her. But with Gender Fluid, he was able to be the boy that his family wanted. A genderqueer respondent reported how ae couldn’t afford bottom surgery and felt suicidal whenever ae had an erection, but Gender Fluid let him enjoy having sex with his girlfriend. A trans guy reported how his girlfriend had been all set to leave him if he transitioned, and he couldn’t bear to lose her, but Gender Fluid let her be a girl so they could stay together. Another trans guy reported that he’d been suffering a religious crisis because transitioning went against his beliefs, but now she felt like God had sent the witch to help her find her way.

The witch couldn’t honestly say what they thought was the right choice in most of those cases. They deeply wished those people could be themselves, but if that wasn’t an option, wasn’t it a good thing to be able to ease their pain?

Their autigender friend had a very different opinion. “It’ll set a precedent. People will start denying transition services, because you could just drink Gender Fluid instead, and then society wouldn’t have to deal with it.” Xe argued. “It’s already happening with lots of disabilities.”

The witch took a few months to think it over, but before they could decide, they suddenly came across a person online who claimed he’d reverse-engineered Gender Fluid. He even posted a recipe to prove it—and while it wasn’t the same recipe the witch used, it gave close enough results that it didn’t matter.

The witch consulted a lawyer with the idea of suing for copyright infringement, but this guy had posted anonymously, so that went nowhere. It was too late. Gender Fluid was out there, and they couldn’t unrelease it.


End file.
